Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

With neither Westlock nor Mark Tapley there Tom Pinch was lonely and welcomed the arrival of Martin, with whom he soon made friends. Mr. Pecksniff folded his new pupil to his breast, shed a crocodile tear and set him to work designing a grammar-school.

Old Chuzzlewit soon heard where Martin his grandson was, and wrote to Pecksniff asking him to meet him in London. Pecksniff was so anxious to curry favor with the rich old man that, taking his daughters with him, he left at once for London, where they put up at a boarding-house kept by a Mrs. Todgers, while Pecksniff awaited the arrival of old Chuzzlewit.

Mrs. Todgers's house smelled of cabbage and greens and mice, and Mrs. Todgers herself was bony and wore a row of curls on the front of her head like little barrels of flour. But a number of young men boarded there, and Charity and Mercy enjoyed themselves very much.

One whom they met on this trip to London was a remote relative of theirs, a nephew of old Chuzzlewit's, named Jonas. Jonas's father was eighty years old and a miser, and the son, too, was so mean and grasping that he often used to wish his father were dead so he would have his money.

The old father, indeed, would have had no friend in his own house but for an old clerk, Chuffey, who had been his schoolmate in boyhood and had always lived with him. Chuffey was as old and dusty and rusty as if he had been put away and forgotten fifty years before and some one had just found him in a lumber closet. But in his own way Chuffey loved his master.

Jonas called on the two Pecksniff daughters, and Charity, the elder, determined to marry him. Jonas, however, had his own opinion, and made up his mind to marry Mercy, her younger sister.

Before long old Chuzzlewit reached London, and when Pecksniff called he told him his grandson, Martin, was an ingrate, who had left his protection, and asked the architect not to harbor him. Pecksniff, who worshiped the other's money and would have betrayed his best friend for old Chuzzlewit's favor, returned home instantly, heaped harsh names upon Martin and ordered him to leave his house at once.

Martin guessed what had caused Pecksniff to change his mind so suddenly, and with hearty contempt for his truckling action, he left that very hour in the rain, though he had only a single silver piece in his pocket. Tom Pinch, in great grief for his trouble, ran after him with a book as a parting gift, and between its leaves Martin found another silver piece—all Tom had.

Most of the way to London Martin walked. Once there he took a cheap lodging, and tried to find some vessel on which he could work his passage to America, for there, as he walked, he had made up his mind to go. But he found no such opportunity. His money gone, he pawned first his watch and then his other belongings, one by one, until he had nothing left, and was even in distress for food.

Yet his pride was strong, and he gave what was almost his last coin to escape the attentions of one Montague Tigg, a dirty, jaunty, bold, mean, swaggering, slinking vagabond of the shabby-genteel sort, whom he recognized as one who had more than once tried to squeeze money out of his grandfather.